


keep your heart empty for me

by AvaRosier



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-05
Updated: 2016-06-05
Packaged: 2018-07-12 13:07:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7104877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AvaRosier/pseuds/AvaRosier
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lydia Martin may have the makings of a superhero, but she wouldn't be caught dead in an unflattering lycra costume. All she needs is a good pair of boots for running, especially when she's saving her soulmate's life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	keep your heart empty for me

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline: Teen Wolf timeline aged up about two years so Lydia is about 24 in 2017 and Bucky is post CA:CW and didn’t get put back in cryo. Can be a stand-alone. Might have a second chapter in Bucky’s POV. But if you know me, you know my lousy track record with that kind of thing.

 

 

Lydia Martin has a complicated relationship with her sanity.

 

 

Trying to live on campus when she screams her head off at a death only she can sense tends to make people want to steer clear of her. She’s mostly adjusted to her sixth sense, but she can tell sometimes people think she’s odd. Lydia may not be the same teenage girl overly concerned with her peers’ opinions, but she can’t say she ignores them completely. The part she hates most, is how death intrudes in on her unconscious mind, sometimes making it hard to immediately tell when it isn’t just a dream or a nightmare.

 

The loss of control reminds her of when Peter had been in her head.

 

She awakes, and remembers dying. Blinking several times to dispel the half-dark, swirling wisps of a vision, Lydia sits up in bed. The green, glowing lights of her digital clock proclaim it three twenty two in the morning, making her groan.  The instinct is still there, rattling around in her bones, pulling her towards a destination. _Not dead, not yet_. Sighing, she flips the covers to the side and swings her legs off the bed.

 

“Looks like I’m going on another late-night stroll,” she mutters to herself. At least her mom is out spending the night with her boyfriend, another Unmarked like her. Lydia already has her kit ready to go: tall boots with a good sole (in case she has to run for her life), black leggings, and a cute oversized sweater to protect against the chilliness of the autumn night. Her purse has everything in it: keys, phone, flashlight, and the latest line of tiny flash grenades (courtesy of Braeden).

 

She’s out the door in less than five minutes.

 

Lydia was only home over the fall break, in two days she’d be back at Stanford, working on her Master’s.  She’s not even sure why she had made the drive north instead of waiting until Thanksgiving- maybe it’d been the dull sense of restlessness in her that had left her unsettled. At any rate, it wouldn’t hurt her to take a small break and recharge her batteries, even if that means being in Beacon Hills.

 

The streets are dark and empty at three in the morning, the trees rustling noisily every time the breeze kicks up. It’s fairly cool for October, and already most of the houses have Halloween decorations up, making the atmosphere even more creepy. And that's saying something when her life is one never-ending Halloween movie. She turns onto another road, the pavement glinting under the glare of streetlamps, and sighs as the never-completed mall looms ahead. _The abandoned part of town, yeah that doesn’t scream danger and death_ , Lydia grouses to herself as she fishes her phone out of her purse and taps out a message to Malia, letting her know where she is heading in case she needs backup.

 

Most of her high school career, she had feared she’d never live long enough to escape. That she’d end up stuck in a mental institution like her grandma, because humans didn’t understand that she was different or how. Something about ending up in Eichen House, about having her worst fear realized, had made her braver because she’d learned that she could make it beyond that place. Now, looking around, and being able to feel how different the town is now, she thinks maybe she’s finally made her peace with Beacon Hills.

 

The wind dies down, leaving the mall entrance eerily silent. Lydia can still feel the pull, the sense of imminent death. It isn’t too late. But as she takes her first, careful steps inside, hugging the line between the shadows and the scant light coming in through the skylight, she becomes aware of an itching sensation along her right hip, where her soulmark is located.

 

Could it be?

 

Heart pounding, Lydia closes her eyes for a moment to try and glean a more specific direction. There are…stainless steel counters…lots of empty spaces…a kitchen. She changes course for the food court. The noise in her head becomes louder and her chest begins to constrict with a sense of desperation.

 

The whole world seems soulmate-obsessed, and in a way, Lydia both desperately wants that kind of idealistic love for herself, but she also fears it because that seems to demand a level of intimacy she wonders if she could even bring herself to show. She’s worked very hard to achieve her educational goals but…she also wants the ‘90s rom-com love story. If this is it, then she thinks she wants it.

 

After she saves her possible soulmate’s ass, that is.

 

And she _has_ to save them, the instinct at the back of her head is telling her…this is the _most important person to save_ …she can’t fail them like she failed All-

 

She comes to a stop in front of one specific space and stares up at the sign with a disbelieving huff. It’s a clear path inside, to the small kitchen and storage space in the back, and Lydia is immensely proud of how she doesn’t make a damn noise when she turns the corner and sees a gun pointed inches away from her face.

 

Tilting her head to raise an eyebrow at the man behind the gun, she waves her flashlight in the general direction of the entrance. “ _ **Really, of all places, you had to pick ‘Hot Dog on a Stick’**_?”

 

The gun slowly lowers and the man, looking more than a little beat up, gapes at her. He’s, to paraphrase Cordelia Chase, a tall hunk of salty goodness. She takes in the longish brown hair tied back, the wide blue eyes, and the way the rounded cupid’s bow of his upper lip does wonders to soften the roughness of his day-after stubble. Whoever this man is, even his beaten-up jacket and layered shirts can’t disguise how cut he is.

 

“ _ **Actually, sweetheart, that was your fault**_.” Those lips melt into a lazy grin. Now it’s Lydia’s turn to gape up at the stranger, who is most definitely her Soulmate.  She has a tendency to use that pet name against other people, in great part because it was tattooed on her skin. She’d never let anyone get away with calling her that. Lydia finds herself struck uncharacteristically dumb, and she’s aware her lips are opening and closing as she tries to figure out what to say.

 

“What’s the matter, cat got your tongue?” He drawls, eyebrows raising in subtle mockery as he slides his weapon back into its thigh holster. Just having her attention drawn to it snaps her out of her stupor.

 

“ _No_ ,” she tells him, lips forming that long-since perfected 'o’. “But dead men tell no tales, which is why we need to get out of here before it all goes FUBAR.”

 

“Huh?” The confusion on his face is rather comical, and adorable. Lydia starts to stalk past him, grabbing ahold of his elbow and trying, rather ineffectually, to drag him along with her. Seeing that her soulmate remains immovable, she sighs and meets his quizzical eyes.

 

“Look, I don’t have time to explain everything. Here’s the highlight reel: I’m a banshee, I’m out here in the middle of an abandoned mall because of you, so now, can we please blow this hot-dog stand before there are men with bullets that penetrate your thick skull.”

 

Lydia wishes she could describe the way the expression seems to utterly vanish off her soulmate’s face, leaving a blank mask only broken by the perceptible clench in his jaw. She nearly shivers at the change. Definitely a soldier of some kind, she thinks, as he strides towards the back exit that would take them out of the mall itself.

 

“Alright. Stay at my back, we’re going to head down the steps and hug the wall until we get to the corner. I’ll assess the situation then and see if we can make a break for the trees and get to the street. My ride’s only twenty minutes away, we just have to make it to that. Okay?”

 

The buzzing is louder, making her teeth hurt. She wants to know who these people are that want him dead, and why they’re in Beacon Hills, but she’s used to  _weird_ and _dangerous_ , so she just nods. “Okay. My name’s Lydia, by the way.” If they end up dying, she at least wants to know the man’s damn name.

 

He mulls over his own response for a moment, making her suspicious “James,” he finally says. 

 

“Pleasure to meet you, and James? Go now.” Whatever he sees in her eyes, she thinks James could tell she’s dead serious.

 

They push out into the night, the stale air giving away to light mist and the faint scent of smoke. His gun is out and she does her best to move as carefully and as silently as her soulmate, and for a moment Lydia wonders if she should’ve told him she can shatter people’s skulls with her scream.

 

Maybe on the second date.

 

He reaches back without looking, with his free hand, the one encased in a black glove. She takes it, curling her much smaller hand into his. Something flips in her stomach, and then settles. It’s not that her fear melts away- that’s still there- but Lydia feels safer, less alone.

 

Which is good, because that’s when the bullets start flying.


End file.
